Khawla Shehadeh
Climate Stress

Do you also suffer from climate stress? Maybe you recognise the constant undercurrent of guilt and shame in yourself too. With every tomato you take out of its plastic packaging, with throwing away things that have run out like electric toothbrushes or old Teflon pans, with buying fruit from the other side of the world, with eating meat and dairy products, with booking a flight holiday. There is judgement attached to everything. Always you are not doing it right (enough). The fate of the polar bear on its last square metre of ice floe and my consumption choices seem to go hand in hand. I am responsible for all the climate misery in the world if I am not conscious about everything I do. Many people, especially young people, suffer from this. Climate stress or even climate despair, it is called. We are talking about real fears and depression here. Some philosophers (like Wouter Kusters) and psychologists even speak of trauma for something to come.